LINSEED欣然呈现群展”包山包海”（Swallow Mountain, Drain Sea)，展出七位生活工作于世界各地的亚洲年轻艺术家的最新作品。艺术家包括：陈锦彬、程婷婷、丁浩（Damien H. DING）、刘佳林、夏莎菲、严义竣（Daniel UM）、庄萃玮（Kara CHIN）。展览将于2023年5月4日开幕，并持续至6月17日。纵使表现方式截然不同，此次的作品通过对感受独特的赋形，共同探索切身的感性经验可以被分享甚至体悟的可能。正如语言学家与哲学家乔治·莱考夫（George Lakoff）和马克·约翰逊（Mark Johnson）在《我们赖以生存的隐喻》（Metaphors We Live By）中所说，即使在语言和思维的再现形式中，思考与交流并非纯粹抽象。恰恰相反，这些再现中充斥着对空间与实体的感知，两位学者由此提出“容器”（CONTAINER）的概念来强调此具身性。展览中的绘画，影像与装置唤起了一系列从狭窄到无垠的具身体验。同时，这些作品也像是容器承载了非一般性的宗教空间、异托邦空间、梦境空间和阈限空间，各自书写着对我们身处空间的隐喻。
左：庄萃玮 Kara Chin，觉醒仪式 Awakening Ceremony， 2021，1080p 循环动画影像 1080p loop animation，00:12:20，Edition 2 of 3 (+1 AP)
右：庄萃玮 Kara Chin，加大容量135杯20升商用长生泉热饮机 135-Cup 20 Litre XL Commercial Size Hot Elixir Dispenser, 2021，1080p 循环动画影像 1080p loop animation，00:00:57，Edition 2 of 3 (+1 AP)
庄萃玮（b. 1994，新加坡）的影像《觉醒仪式》（Awakening Ceremony）中，水壶上冒出的蒸汽像是祭典的香烟氤氲，餐具之间的敲击发出像是宗教秘典中的声音，还有眩目迷眼的红色瓷砖与现场的红色灯光，仿佛召唤了一个被半科学半宗教制品（faux-tech-religious artifacts）所包围的仪式空间。一纵不停旋转着的机械臂正挥舞着艺术家在eBay上看到的商品，隐喻着在科技飞速的迭代下已被系统化细分、被邪典化规范了的日常生活。影像中挑衅似的流水线踩着独特的韵律，诙谐地批判如今对高度编排过的日常仪式无条件的崇拜。与此同时，被这些人工智能狂欢轨迹所包围的骷髅，作为艺术史中挥之不去的死亡标记（memento mori）再一次扣问，当面对无法回头的信息科技革命，人类究竟是一种什么样的存在。
庄萃玮 Kara Chin
觉醒仪式 Awakening Ceremony, 2021
1080p 循环动画影像 1080p loop animation
00:12:20
Edition 2 of 3 (+1 AP)
静默的氛围始终贯穿刘佳林（b. 1993，中国）的作品，然而即使艺术家的笔端通常是不遮掩的、直白的、写实的，画面中的异托邦空间却将观者卷入涡旋的深渊，迷失于这些匿名的、无神的、虚无的角色之中。刘佳林通过运用背身（rückenfigur）、分身（doppelgänger）、重复堆叠等不同人物构图来强调一种原子化个人的异化状态，并与人物周围匿名的环境相呼应。艺术家幽暗的调色盘仿佛像参杂了放射性尘埃，才使画面营造出了后核战争一般的肃穆场景。与此同时，这些常规地点，一条小巷、一个广场、一条林荫大道，因其抽象的表现变得熟悉又陌生，幽灵般缠绕上每个人。
刘佳林 Lyn Liu
信任游戏 Trust Game, 2023
亚麻布面油画 Oil on linen
101.6 × 101.6 cm
与之相似的，在程婷婷（b. 1993，中国）末日影像中，拟人玩偶放大了人格（personhood）的行为机制，同时也反映出人之社会性的压抑规定。对于艺术家来说，影像作品《秘密行动》中的木偶雕塑蕴含着一种原始的“沟通的亲密巫术”，而这一暗流早已被人类中心主义下的主宰与控制这个范式所淹没。艺术家将中国古代哲学比如《易经》中的论理融入影像蒙太奇，空间由一段去中心化的游牧旅程铺展开。末日的空间仿佛昭示传统人类中心编年史的失利。映照考古追溯人类历史的方法，影片的角色倒置：以漫游的木偶为第一视角漫谈“神经”的人类士兵，展现了艺术家对于意象、物质和空间的情境性的不断思考。
程婷婷 Cheng Tingting
秘密行动 Covert Operation, 2022
单频影像（彩色，有声）Single-channel video (color, sound)
00:08:43
Edition of 5
从《痴心信徒》（Wishful Prayer）中居于现实、舞台与梦境三者交汇处的主角出发，严义竣（b. 2001，韩国）的绘画作品通过重叠感觉与想象，编织了一首一半欢愉一半忧郁的小夜曲。在艺术家的幻想空间中，人物与环境的颜色难分彼此、糅合共振。然而即使在较轻快的作品中，主角都被圆形环绕，划出一个阻止观者入侵的空间。梦中的地面也是扭曲的，观者没有办法在艺术家的梦境中降落。这样的不稳定与短暂性，在他用重复的点触所营造出的片状剥落般的画面中达到极致。当梦境的空间处于凋萎的阈值，观者也随之被置于不确定性中。
严义竣 Daniel Um
痴心信徒 Wishful Prayer, 2023
布面油画与色粉 Oil and pastel on canvas
50.8 × 60.96 cm
而夏莎菲（b. 1989，中国）的创作同样来源于艺术家对于在私密的房间中创造出另一宇宙这一感受的痴迷。在这个宇宙中，不论什么图像都可以转化为装饰性的纹案；动物的拟人化也因艺术家常被一种人与动物间神秘的相似性吸引：“我们是需要被了解的老虎，被误解的猪，爬来爬去的乌龟。”然而，与其细腻的线条、温润的色彩反衬，夏莎菲画中的角色常常展现出欢逸享乐、“有伤风化”的古怪姿态。在床上的少女和猪、在沙发里交缠的猎豹更将生活家具转化成了一种舞台设计。将看似童真的意趣与浪荡的春色紧密缝合，夏莎菲的作品常常以一种女性的诙谐幽默叽诮并试探着平淡的现实。
夏莎菲 Xia Shafei
宝贝，我们去沙滩吧 Baby, Let's Go to the Beach, 2022
檀皮纸本水彩，布面装裱 Watercolour on sandal paper mounted on canvas
121 x 117 cm
丁浩（b. 1992，新加坡）将蛋彩画收入于桃花心木盒中，这一模仿家用祭坛画的结构试图追索曾几一时观众与宗教图像之间的亲密关联。通过用神秘的光源，点亮本是混沌一片虚空一片的黑暗来展现阈限的存在，艺术家的画面试图探索空间与视线之间错综复杂的关系。几何的形状与它柔软的边界；大面积的色块与丝状的色彩明暗，这些张力都更加体现了光线与物体之间的协同作用。蜘蛛背后射出的光、巨人身上洒下的光、湖面诡异闪烁的光，丁浩木盒中的绘画更加剧了欲望（观看的欲望）和恐惧之间的矛盾关系。
丁浩 Damien H. Ding
飞蛾侠 Mothman, 2022
板面蛋彩画，桃花心木盒 Egg tempera on panel in mahogany container
画面尺寸 Painting size: 15.3 × 15.3 cm
综合尺寸可变 Total dimensions variable
相似的，陈锦彬（b. 1994，中国）的作品如同阈限空间中的非传统相遇（encounter）。对于艺术家来说，这种相遇中的偶发对话使用了一种特殊的“无性的性感”语言。四肢伸展、肌肤呼吸，这种互渗性充斥着陈锦彬半透明的调色盘。在《阿多尼斯的检查》中，肉体的颜色从半身像下端向上蔓延，定格了充满欲望的“无性”相遇这一瞬间。同时，对一个神话人物的检查和阿多尼斯的肉身化，也反映了陈锦彬对于孕育能力/生产性的拷问。正如《抱蛋》中的孵化器闪着黑光，像是显示器中的故障，艺术家幻想出一种怀孕的欧米伽男性（male-omega）冒险于秩序与混乱之间的模糊地带。当被这些艺术家的空间隐喻环抱时，我们得以质询再现大于具身这一秩序关系是否真实。
陈锦彬 Chen Jinbin
阿多尼斯的检查 Examination at Adonis’s, 2023
布面油画与丙烯 Oil and acrylic on canvas
53 × 65 cm
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LINSEED is pleased to present the group show “Swallow Mountain, Drain Sea” from May 4 to June 17, 2023, shedding light on the recent works of seven emerging artists with Asian backgrounds: CHEN Jinbin, CHENG Tingting, Kara CHIN, Damien H. DING, Lyn LIU, Daniel UM, XIA Shafei. Despite their distinctive approaches, these artists explore the ways in which perceptual and visceral experiences can be shared or even inhabited through art-making. As George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, both prominent linguisticians and philosophers, have argued in their book Metaphors We Live By, our language and ways of thinking are not essentially representational. Instead, the mind is very well rooted in our sense of space and physical substance. The two scholars propose the idea of ‘CONTAINER’ to underline the embodied mind. Evoking the gamut of sense of space, from cramped to cavernous, the paintings, videos, and installations in the exhibition bring to the fore the embodiment in visual forms. As religious, dystopian, fantastical, and liminal space unfolds throughout the show, the artworks in turn act as containers of idiosyncratic experiences, tellingly making embodied metaphors of the space we live in.
庄萃玮 Kara Chin
我揉面 I Knead Dough, 2021
釉面陶瓷，砂浆 Glazed ceramic, tile grout
24.8 × 18.7 × 1 cm
Together with the steam from kettles resembling incense smoke and the clanks between tablewares simulating sacred sounds, the dazzling red both on-site and of the glazed ceramics in Kara CHIN’s (b. 1994, Singapore) Awakening Ceremony summons a ritual space surround by ‘faux-tech-religious artifacts.’ An array of rotating robotic arms is wielding the commercial products the artist saw on eBay — an analogy of our daily routine that is systematically subdivided and cultishly institutionalized in midst of rampant technological advancement. On the one hand, the tantalizing assembly line composes a humorous and rhythmic critique of our unconditional devotion to the curated daily rituals. On the other hand, the assertive presence of memento mori, the skull engulfed by artificial intelligence’s carnivalesque trajectories, raises again the art-historical question about our subjectivity against the backdrop of the ascending transhumanism.
刘佳林 Lyn Liu
小径 Alley, 2023
亚麻布面油画 Oil on linen
101.6 × 83.8 cm
While quiescence permeates Lyn LIU’s (b. 1993, China) oeuvre, her dystopian space often embroils the viewer into a whirling abyss — a sense of disorientating lost in the anonymous, enervated, and nihilist characters despite the unfiltered, legible, and realistic brushwork. Gripping with the epoch of atomic individuals, Liu’s tableau incorporates rückenfigur, doppelgänger, and repetitions to accentuate the alienated characters amidst the yet anonymous surroundings. Fallouts seem to constitute Liu’s dark palette as the desolated scenes radiate a post-nuclear war aura. Meanwhile, the abstract place haunts the viewer with its generality and, at the meantime, defamiliarization of an alley, a square, or a boulevard.
程婷婷 Cheng Tingting
神龛：两把枪 Shrine: Twin Guns, 2021
铸铜，棕榈，线 Cast brass, palm, wire
尺寸可变 Dimensions variable
Likewise, in CHENG Tingting’s (b. 1993, China) apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic video, puppetry amplifies the mechanisms of personhood as well as the oppressive definitions of social beings. For Cheng, the sculptural puppet in Covert Operation conveys the undercurrent of ‘intimate witchcraft of communication.’ For long has it been swamped by the anthropocentric regime of domination and control. With traditional Chinese decision-making techniques in The Book of Changes utilized by Cheng in the video montage, space unfolds following a nomadic wanderer instead of a central narrative. The apocalyptic space epitomizes the failure of traditional historiography. Mirroring our retrospect of history through archeological approaches, the subverted role of the artifacts lamenting the catatonic soldier showcases the artist’s constant contemplation on the contextuality of symbol, material, and space.
严义竣 Daniel Um
大象记忆 Elephant's Memory, 2023
布面油画与色粉 Oil and pastel on canvas
27.9 × 35.56 cm
Departing from Wishful Prayer where the protagonist dwells at the intersection of reality, stage, and dream, Daniel UM’s (b. 2001, South Korea) oil paintings compose a half delightful, half somber serenade where his impressions and imaginations coalesce. In Um’s fantastical space, the color of the figures and their surroundings merges into each other and plays a harmonious symphony. Yet even in his lighthearted scenes in this series, protagonists in amusement are encircled, demarcating a space that hinders the viewer's intrusion. Terra firma is distorted, leaving no place for a firm landing in the artist’s dreamscape. Culminating at the exfoliating effect of repetitive dabs, the instability and ephemerality in Um’s canvas situate the viewer in uncertainty as his fantastical space is always on the threshold of withering.
夏莎菲 Xia Shafei
欢愉 Felicità, 2022
檀皮纸本水彩，布面装裱 Watercolour on sandal paper mounted on canvas
77.5 × 94.5 cm
In the same vein, XIA Shafei’s (b. 1989, China) fantasia derives from her fascination with the creative experience in private rooms where she could visualize an alternative universe. In the imaginary world, all shapes can be converted into repetitive and decorative patterns; anthropomorphism prevails as the uncanny kinship between animals and human beings haunts Xia: ‘We are tigers to get to know, misunderstood pigs, turtles that crawl around.’ Contrary to her refined delineation and mellow tonality, Xia’s characters are often depicted in licentious manners and risque antics. Pairing of the matron and swine in bed, the panthers having coitus on the sofa, and the tiger reading bedtime stories, all of them transform the domestic furniture into a theatrical stage. Incorporating her childish play in the erotica, the artist explores a feminine vernacular that humorously ridicules the bleak reality of dull life.
丁浩 Damien H. Ding
宠物 Pet, 2022
板面蛋彩画 Egg tempera on panel
41.9 × 41.9 cm
Damien H. DING’s (b. 1992, Singapore) tempera paintings in mahogany containers are inspired by the engagement with domestic altarpieces, reminiscent of the time when intimacy with artworks abounded. Delving into the intricacy between space and sight, Ding’s panels are illuminated by mysterious beams of light to unveil the liminal presence of the otherwise utter confusion, chaos, and vainness of darkness. The synergy of the light across space and the object in itself is further demonstrated in the tensions between geometrical forms and their soft edges and between expanses of color and threadlike shades. With the light radiating behind the spider, cascading on the colossi, and looming ominously on the lake, Ding’s paintings contained in boxes also intensify the ambivalence between desire — the desire to see — and fear.
陈锦彬 Chen Jinbin
抱蛋 Incubation, 2023
布面油画 Oil on canvas
45 × 35 cm
Similarly, CHEN Jinbin’s (b. 1994, China) canvas unfolds an alternative encounter in a liminal space. For the artist, fortuitous dialogues of encounter speak a unique language of desire that is devoid of the sexually explicit. One’s limbs sprawl; skin breathes as the porosity is omnipresent in Chen's diluted palette. In Examination at Adonis’s, the flesh color that climbs up the plaster bust encapsulates this moment of desexualized encounter brimming with desire. Meanwhile, the inspection of a mythological icon and the incarnation of Adonis also reflect Chen’s inquiry into reproductive power. As the incubator in Incubation shines with its darkness like a glitch on the display, the artist imagines a pregnant male-omega that ventures into an ambiguous zone between order and chaos. When the artists embrace us with the metaphorical space, the fictitious order between the representational and the embodied fades into darkness.
